And Fostering Fantastic Beasts
by The Black Sun's Daughter
Summary: Flynn treats a sword like a pet. Ezekiel's adopted a gargoyle once before. The Librarians themselves are all strays. So why shouldn't they be ones to adopt pets of a more...non-conventional type? Can't really blame them, either. Ever seen a hellhound puppy?
1. Sissy

Ezekiel loved Greece. Really, he did. It was a lovely country, great food, lots of old, expensive stuff for the taking, but he definitely did not love this particular Greek island. Or the slimy wet caves on this particular Greek island, where a group of occultists were trying to open a gate to Hades like the geniuses they were. And where they had apparently chained up a pair of very big, angry hellhounds. Real ones, that were _real_ unhappy about being locked up.

The occultists had been swallowed up by the portal they'd tried open, which Cassandra had immediately closed with a helpful Greek translation from Jacob. With the threat to their doorway gone, the hellhounds vanished; apparently, they only appeared when someone tried to dick around with the door to the underworld, like satanic guard dogs. According to Jacob, that really was their purpose. Which was cool, really, but Jacob hadn't been the one to keep the stupid mutts occupied. _No,_ that'd been all Ezekiel, and he was ready to go home and binge-watch a season of _Daredevil_ on Netflix, well away from any hellhounds or underworld trapdoors. He'd gotten enough cardio for the week, thanks very much.

"What is he doing?" Ezekiel asked wearily as he trudged back to his lovers, holding the fading stitch in his side. Jacob had gotten down on the ground and had wriggled halfway down a tiny passage in the cavern wall that barely looked big enough for him, and Ezekiel hoped the git wouldn't get himself stuck.

"I have no idea," Cassandra replied. "I think he said he heard something."

Jacob let out a victorious, albeit muffled, shout and wriggled his way back out of the narrow little tunnel, muddy and slightly damp. "Cass, Jonesy, look what I found!" he declared joyously, holding up a small, squirming hellhound puppy.

Ezekiel took a step back. "No," he said immediately.

Cassandra let out a joyous little squeak at the sight of the puppy, then turned around to face Ezekiel with eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, no?"

"I mean, no, we are not taking it with us." He was nearly _eaten_ by one of those damn things, they were _not_ taking one with them, no matter how small or fluffy it looked at the moment.

"What do you want to do, leave it here? We can't exactly take it to a shelter."

"Put it back!" he exclaimed, because _duh._

Cassandra placed both hands on her hips and glared at him. "Oh, sure, let me just go ahead and open the portal that we just spent an hour closing, I'm sure the fully grown ones would just love to play another game of tag," she drawled sarcastically, brandishing the Greek spellbook that they'd lifted off the occultists. "Come on, Jones, it's just a puppy. Besides, we let you keep Stumpy," she protested.

"Stumpy was not optional," Ezekiel countered. "Stumpy was a stalker pet, and furthermore, Stumpy did not try to _eat me."_

"We're not going to leave it here, Jones, it'll die," she insisted.

Ezekiel turned to Jacob for support and felt himself deflating before he even got a word out. Ignoring his lovers' bickering entirely, Jacob had unzipped his jacket and tucked the puppy into his layers, holding it close so it stayed warm, and he was stroking its small head with two fingertips, speaking to it softly. And just like that, Ezekiel knew he'd lost, because never in his life had he heard Jacob Stone coo over anything. "Fine," he sighed heavily, shoulders dropping; Cassandra beamed. "But you guys are explaining it to Jenkins."

* * *

Needless to say, Jenkins was _not_ impressed with their little souvenir. Ezekiel was kind of hoping that the old man would back him up, but he'd apparently underestimated the true power of Jacob Stone's puppy-eyes.

Despite looking ready to give them a lengthy lecture on wild magical animals _not_ being pets and the Library _not_ being an animal shelter, Jenkins finally just heaved a sigh and held out both hands. "Let me see it." The hellhound puppy squirmed and whimpered pitifully, trying to find its way back to the scent of the man that'd already become associated with warmth and safety. Jenkins opened its mouth and studied its teeth, then inspected the bottoms of its paws before handing it back to Jacob; once he'd tucked it back in his jacket, the puppy stopped making that piteous crying sound. "Well, Mr. Stone, you're lucky. It still has its milk teeth, and its footpads haven't fully formed yet. It's young enough to imprint on you, so it's likely not to eat you."

"Likely?" Ezekiel repeated incredulously.

Jenkins gave him a sardonic smile. "Highly likely."

The possibility of being eaten didn't seem to effect Jacob at all; he was grinning like a ten-year-old boy at Christmas; Cassandra kissed his cheek and skipped away, saying something about making a supply run, she'd be right back.

"You act like you never had a pet before," Ezekiel remarked as they walked out of the lab. "I mean, you've had a dog, at least, right?"

Something flickered behind Jacob's eyes, and he shrugged in a motion that was way too forced-casual for Ezekiel to believe it. "Yeah, I did, but my, uh, my pop got rid of it."

Well, damn. If Ezekiel wasn't sold before, he definitely was now. He didn't like Jacob's father. At all. He'd carried a vague dislike of the man ever since it became clear just who was responsible for instilling a lot of Jacob's doubts and issues, but it became a lot clearer once he met the man in person and saw what a first-rate arsehole he was. And then there were occasions where Jacob would say something like that, one sentence with so much more behind it, and Ezekiel would really fucking hate Isaac Stone.

Instead of asking, though, Ezekiel just said, "If it chews up my shoes, I'm taking it back to the cave."

Jacob cast him a sideways glance. "Do you really not like dogs?" he asked, and he sounded almost unhappy when he said it, like he was afraid Ezekiel would actually make him get rid of it.

"No. I'm afraid you're gonna end up liking that thing more than me and Cassie," Ezekiel replied with a smirk, elbowing him lightly.

Jacob was one of those people that usually liked animals more than other people and would never allow someone to get away with ill-treating animals. They'd gone out on a date in Madrid once and walked past an alley where a trio of adolescents, certainly old enough to know better, had cornered a stray dog and were tormenting the poor thing with a broken piece of a broom handle. Ezekiel's Spanish was a little rusty, but he'd understood the historian perfectly when Jacob strode over and told them to leave the dog alone and go home before he took that stick and beat _them_ with it, see how much _they_ liked it. He was pretty sure that one of the punks had started crying when they were running away.

And although he was only fluent in nine languages, he knew how to say 'can I pet your dog?' in 17 more.

The historian's ears turned a little pink, as if he knew exactly what Ezekiel was talking about, but then he gave a sly smile and replied, "Cassie, never. You...maybe."

"Oh, shut up."

* * *

A bit of research confirmed that the puppy was a Greek hellhound, as if there was any doubt to begin with, and honestly, Ezekiel hadn't even known there was more than one kind. Jacob named her Lysistrata, which was almost immediately shortened to Sissy. She understood Greek the easiest, naturally, so Ezekiel and Cassandra both got a rudimentary lesson in the language. And despite Jenkins' warning them that hellhounds had a nasty habit of eating people, Sissy never once so much as nipped at them. She chewed a dozen rawhides to pieces once she started teething, but she never bit.

Cassandra presented Jacob with a collar for Sissy, one of those spiked leather ones in hot pink, complete with a shiny set of tags. Never one to miss an opportunity, Ezekiel found a harness and leash that matched, much to Jacob's amusement.

And when a terrified shrieking sent Ezekiel and Jacob both running, thinking something had happened to Cassandra, they were instead confronted with the sight of Sissy sitting beside a bookcase and looking up at Flynn, who had scaled the side of the bookcase with impressive speed for a man wearing corduroys. After that, Ezekiel believed that letting Jacob keep his pet hellhound was the best decision _ever._


	2. The Triplets

Chapter Text

"Well, _that_ was tedious," Jacob remarked as the last gateway snapped shut, leaving behind the smell of ozone and charred sulfur. Cassandra nodded agreement as she stood up and brushed off her skirt. It was hopeless; she'd need a lint-roller to save it now. "C'mon, let's get this stuff together and go home, it's _Grey's Anatomy_ night."

A shuffling noise from overhead made Cassandra glance upwards, hoping that they hadn't somehow missed one of the gateways; instead, a flash of bright feathers caught her eye, and she backed up a few steps to see more clearly, taking care not to trip on any of the debris that littered the half-collapsed chamber of an ancient Aztec chamber. "Jacob, look up there," she exclaimed when she saw the flash of bright movement again, pointing to the top of the pillar.

They looked like dragons almost, except they were probably half the size of a housecat, and they had _feathers,_ vibrant, glossy feathers that shone with a rainbow hue, framing their heads like lion manes and forming little tufts on the end of their tails. One was a vibrant green hue with a golden undertone on its belly and ears. The biggest one was a rich, glossy red with purple markings on its back like stripes, and the smallest was peacock blue with silvery freckles.

"They're _beautiful,"_ Cassandra exclaimed, watching the tiny dragons crawl around the tops of the pillars, looking down at her with inquisitive yellow eyes. "What do you think they are?"

Jacob shrugged as he finished packing up the rest of the ritual items into his bag; they'd take it back to the Annex and study it later, determine just how dangerous it all was, including the artifact the Aztec priest had been using to open the gateways, a bone-handle knife with an obsidian blade. "I dunno, but let's hurry up and go. They might be dangerous. Probably some kind of guardian spirits, like hellhounds," he replied.

"Where'd Ezekiel go?" Cassandra asked, picking her way over to help Jacob finish cleaning up. Apparently, the reawakening of magic was bringing all the weirdos out of the woodwork; Jacob suggested that the die-hard occultists and pagans were probably reading it as some kind of omen and trying to bring about the second coming of whatever god they worshipped.

He shrugged as he brushed the rubble off a slab of stone covered in symbols. After studying it for a moment, he put it in the bag with the rest. "I don't know, but I hope he's not dicking around with anything. Aztecs took their religion seriously, and I doubt they'd be happy with him screwing something up. I'd rather not have to arm-wrestle Huitzilopochtli because Jonesy decided to play with a statuette."

"I have no idea who Hokey-pokey-tea-leaf is, but I'll go ahead and say that he's no fun," Ezekiel drawled as he walked over to them. "And I wasn't 'dicking around' with any of the altars, love, I was seeing if I could find the map to El Dorado. City made of gold, my kind of scene."

Jacob rolled his eyes. _"Huitzilopochtli_ is the god of war and human sacrifice, Jonesy. No, he's not exactly a joy."

Cassandra glanced up at the tiny feathery dragons again and saw that they were still watching, but now their gazes were fixed solely on Ezekiel in particular. "I think you've got fans," she noted, poking him in the ribs and pointing upwards.

"Just so long as they don't bite, I'm cool with it," the thief replied. "Are we ready to go, cowboy?"

"Yeah, yeah, sure." Jacob pulled the drawstring on the bag tight and slid the strap over one shoulder. "That's all of it."

"Good, then let's go ho—" Ezekiel cut off with a loud, startled yelp of surprise, drawing their attention.

Taking advantage of his distraction, the tiny feathered dragons had jumped on Ezekiel en masse and were happily swarming all over him. The green had scaled his arm and was coiling around his shoulders like a feather boa as the red tried to crawl beneath his jumper, the blue curiously trying to nibble on his wristwatch. Cassandra laughed aloud at the sight he made, and Jacob barely managed to hide his snicker behind a cough. "I guess they're not dangerous, then," she observed.

"Maybe not," Jacob agreed, grinning widely as the red one succeeded in crawling under Ezekiel's jumper, its feathery head popping up out the collar of his shirt. "Did you steal anything from the temple, Jones? If they are guardians, they won't let you leave with it," he observed.

"No, I didn't take anything! Trust me, mate, I've seen enough films to know what happens when you do that," the thief replied, squirming as he tried to pull the tiny creature out of his shirt. "Would you two come _help_ me, this thing bloody tickles!"

Cassandra tried not to laugh too much as she wrapped both hands around the green one and gently pried it off his shoulder, having to use her fingers to unhook its claws without tearing the fabric. It squirmed and squeaked unhappily, but she kept hold of it until Jacob shooed away the blue one long enough to free the red one from Ezekiel's jumper. He immediately scrambled to his feet, and she bent to put the green one down. They fluttered their wings and looked up at Ezekiel with puzzlement, like they didn't understand why he didn't want to play. The red one started towards him. Ezekiel took a long stride back and jabbed one finger at it. "No. _No._ Stay off," he ordered; to Cassandra's amusement, they actually seemed to understand, slinking backwards with feathery crests lying flat.

Ezekiel had to walk backwards out of the temple because each time he turned around, they would try to jump on him again but would stay contritely in place when he was watching.

"It's so pretty here. We should come back soon. Actually go sight-seeing," Cassandra suggested as they walked through the ruins of the ancient city, picking their way back down to the narrow little track of road where they'd left the truck.

Jacob nodded and wrapped an arm around her waist, bringing her closer to his side; she leant into his warmth happily. After a moment, he glanced around and let out a low rumbling laugh. "It looks like we've got a shadow," Jacob noted, heavy amusement lacing his voice, and Cassandra turned around, following his line of sight. Crouching down behind a chunk of rubble in what they probably thought was an inconspicuous manner, the three tiny dragons were watching Ezekiel attentively, like dogs in obedience training. Once he got a few paces ahead, they'd dart after him, hiding behind whatever was closest. "Hey, Jonesy! Your fans are back," he called.

Ezekiel stopped and turned around, then groaned aloud. "I didn't _take_ anything," he cried aloud, turning his pockets inside-out as proof as the tiny creatures hopped and fluttered over to him; the red one wove in and out between his ankles, rubbing against him like a cat. The blue made a leap for his wristwatch again, and the green only gazed up at him attentively. "I don't have any food, what do you want?"

All at once, they leapt on the thief again, clambering all over him even as he groaned. Jacob laughed aloud at the look of utter defeat Ezekiel wore as the younger man turned and started trudging towards the truck, the green one riding atop his head like a very peculiar feathery hat.

Cassandra hooked her arm with Jacob's once more and poked him in the ribs. "It's your turn to tell Jenkins," she said; his smile vanished.

* * *

Jenkins was very grateful that they recovered the obsidian knife of Itzpapalotl. He was somewhat less grateful that they had brought back more than that. "How do you consistently manage to find the most unlikely of beasts? I knew I shouldn't have sent you anywhere without your Guardian. Clearly you three need a babysitter. One trip to Greece, and you come back with a hellhound. Why did I think that South America would be any safer?" Jenkins muttered under his breath as he flipped through a large book that was apparently some kind of supernatural bestiary, glancing up at Ezekiel's new 'pets' with a sour gaze.

Eve stood beside the thief with arms folded over her stomach. "I'm inclined to agree with you, Jenkins. These things aren't going to eat us in our sleep, are they?"

"Looks like Quetzalcoatl," Jacob observed; at the confused looks from everyone except Jenkins, he went on, "Aztec god, the feathered serpent. That's whose temple we were at."

"Very good, Mr. Stone. These, however, are not the same thing. The Quetzalcoatl is a real beast, or it was. The conquistadors hunted them into extinction. That was _Draconis quetzalcoatlus gigantis,_ a feathered subspecies of dragon. These are...aha! _Rudiculus xochiquetzalus minima,_ a species of gargoyle, completely unrelated to the Quetzalcoatl," Jenkins explained, tapping a page in the book.

"They're _gargoyles?"_ Cassandra repeated. "Wow, that makes so much more sense." The blue-feathered one fluttered onto the table and sniffed at her curiously, and she reached out to stroke it, smiling as it rolled over to let her rub its belly. "I thought gargoyles were supposed to be all stony," she prompted curiously.

"Usually, they are, yes. It's what happens when the animistic deity enters an inert state, but those in the _Rudiculus_ genus can be brought to life with a sufficient burst of magic," Jenkins replied.

Eve rubbed her forehead with one hand. "Is there any chance we can put them back?" she asked.

The old knight smiled like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. "Absolutely not. In that way, they are very much like true gargoyles."

Cassandra giggled at the look on Eve's face. Jacob already had a pet hellhound, why shouldn't they toss a couple gargoyles in the mix, too? Ezekiel didn't look that bothered, either. The green one was perched on his shoulder again like a very strange bird, and the red one was draped across his thighs, dozing. "Well, Jones, looks like you've got yourself a new Stumpy," she declared happily, even as Eve continued muttering about strays and soft-hearted Librarians under her breath. "What are you gonna call these ones?"

"I should point out before you decide, Mr. Jones, that they are all female," Jenkins tossed in as he scanned the pages of the book. "Males have uniformly grey plumage. Only females are so colourful."

Ezekiel thought on it a moment, then grinned broadly. "Magda," he said, touching the red one. "Zsa Zsa." He glanced up at the green one. "And Eva." He nodded to the blue one.

Eve arched both eyebrows at that whilst Jacob snorted loudly. "The Gabor sisters, dude? Seriously?"

The thief narrowed his eyes at the other man. "You named your hellhound _Sissy."_

"Lysistrata," Jacob corrected, folding his arms defensively.

"Po-tay-to, po-tah-to."

* * *

Ezekiel had a moment of worry that the aforementioned hellhound would try to make a snack out of his feathery friends, but it was thankfully for nothing. After a few cursory sniffs and licks, the trio took a shine to the hellhound; Sissy appeared delighted to have friends to play with. She was not allowed in any of the Animal Rooms. Mistakes had been made.

They were delightfully intelligent animals, which meant they never had to worry about books being chewed up or clothes being shredded. They didn't need to eat or drink, so there was no housebreaking required, either. Zsa Zsa was very fond of riding on Ezekiel's shoulder like a very peculiar bird, but Magda could often be seen hitching a ride on Sissy, perched atop her massive shoulders. They did have to break Eva of her unfortunate habit of stealing shoelaces to play with after Jacob's favourite pair of boots turned up laceless for the fifth time.

Cassandra bought a set of cat toys for them to play with, including one that was just several shoelaces tied to a stick, and Jacob gave Ezekiel colour-coordinated collars for each one with engraved tags on them.

And nobody ever did get around to telling Flynn where all his shoelaces went, either.


	3. Teddy

"Okay, this is officially the most boring mission _ever,"_ Ezekiel mumbled as he slumped against Jacob's shoulder, fighting off sleep.

Jacob didn't shrug him off, which was his way of non-verbally agreeing with Ezekiel. The creature was due for another appearance tonight, and the idea was that they'd get a good look at it, figure out what it was, and then find a way to safely catch/trap it and move it way away from civilisation, but it was going on four hours they'd been waiting, and there hadn't been hide or hair of anything other than themselves.

The Clippings Book had sent them to a slaughterhouse in the middle of bloody nowhere, Texas, where some kind of animal had been breaking in and apparently stealing the product. Which was gross, but it was in the book, so they had to go. Which was why they were currently sitting in a darkened slaughterhouse at two in the morning. Ezekiel didn't like it. The place was creepy and reminded him way too much of a horror video game level, not to mention it smelled. And they hadn't seen a single thing. Nothing. Nada. Jacob had done a lot of the talking for this one, spinning an impressive spiel of BS that convinced the owner of the place to let them have a little stakeout, something about exotic animals and private zoos and a wildlife study. Ezekiel wasn't sure 100% convinced, because it couldn't _actually_ be legal to own a tiger here, right? But the owner and the foreman had both nodded and gone along with it so...

Cassandra suddenly stopped tracing idle patterns on Ezekiel's knee, and then her pointy little elbow dug into his ribs. "Guys, guys, look up there," she whispered, pointing to one of the high windows. There was something moving outside the window, no matter that it was fifteen feet off the ground.

They all went very still and quiet, listening intently as something scraped against the glass, sliding the window open; a soft tearing sound was heard as the... _whatever_ cut through the bug screens that covered all the windows, pushing its way inside and climbing down the wall into the slaughterhouse.

It was a four-limbed animal, with muscular hind legs and a pair of wings that had three clawed fingers at the top of them, like an archaeopteryx, but it looked more like a bird than a lizard. Most of its body was covered in glossy feathers, with only its tail and hindquarters being scaly, and its head was more birdlike than reptilian, complete with a shiny black beak. "I think it's a snallygaster," Jacob realised, staring at the curious animal as it crawled down the wall, claws clicking softly on the stone floor. When it climbed, it used all four limbs, but once on level ground, it walked solely on its reptilian hind legs, folding its wings back.

"Bless you," Cassandra whispered, watching the animal closely.

"No, really. The snallygaster is like Maryland's version of the Jersey Devil, a half-bird, half-dragon demon that ate naughty children and stole livestock. Germans called it _Schneller Geist,_ a quick ghost," Jacob explained. "We've found our big bad monster, then."

 _"That's_ what had all those blokes screaming like a bunch of ninnies? I thought it'd be bigger," Ezekiel mused, watching as the snallygaster sniffed around, moving around and crawling up onto the big steel drums. Snout to tail, it was probably only nine feet long, most of that being in its long, skinny tail, and standing on its hind legs, the top of its head would just barely level with Jacob's shoulder.

"Things always seem bigger when you're scared," Cassandra mused. "It's actually kind of pretty, isn't it?"

They nodded quiet agreement, watching as the snallygaster sniffed around before coming to one of the large steel drums. "What is that?" Ezekiel asked in an undertone.

Jacob shrugged. "Probably blood. They don't always throw it out because it's used to make other things, fertilizer, dog food, stuff like that."

The snallygaster coiled its tail around the drum and started to pry the lid off with its hooked beak, but it went still at the sound of a door rattling somewhere else in the slaughterhouse. With incredible swiftness for its size, the snallygaster whirled around and scaled the wall, scrambling back out of the window. The sound of a gun going off made them all startle, an animal screech of pain splitting the quiet. They ran outside to see the slaughterhouse's foreman standing near the window, holding a double-barreled shotgun in a white-knuckle grip; the snallygaster was nowhere to be seen. "Did...did you see that?" he asked in a shaky voice.

As Jacob strode over to snatch the gun away from the foreman, Ezekiel swore angrily, muttering under his breath; Cassandra clutched his hand tightly, and he let her. Jacob made the man leave with impressive ingenuity: it was _not_ a monster, it was an exotic animal from someone's private zoo, and you might have just shot an endangered species, you moron, now go home and _stay_ there, we'll handle this.

"He didn't hit it, did he?" Cassandra asked anxiously, twisting her hands uneasily as Jacob emptied the shotgun and pocketed the shells.

"Oh, he definitely got it," Ezekiel said grimly, directing his torch beam at the wall; there was a large, thick splatter of near-black blood on the wall just below the window. More blood made a dark, drippy trail down the wall onto the pavement, leading away through the gap in the fence. "Come on, we'll see if we can follow it."

They trudged through the wide band of grass that was between the slaughterhouse and the edge of the trees, stopping occasionally to make sure they were still going in the right direction. Jacob took lead because he'd gone hunting before and knew how to track a wounded animal. "I hope it's not badly hurt," Cassandra murmured as they walked. The historian didn't quite have the heart to tell her that it was. The foreman had probably hit something vital if there was this much blood to follow.

Ezekiel was so busy trying not to trip on anything that he didn't notice Jacob had stopped walking until he ran into the other man's back. "Why'd you stop?" he asked.

"The trail ends right here," Jacob replied, puzzlement lacing his voice as he swept the torch beam back and forth. "That's it, there's no more blood. Do you see it anywhere?"

"No, but look there, mate." Ezekiel stepped around him and crouched on his heels, dragging one hand through the dirt; a swirl of silvery dust rose up from the disturbed soil, catching in the torch beams, and he scooped up a handful of brittle bones that crumbled to the touch. "End of the line." A lot of cryptid animals decomposed at an exponentially accelerated rate, which explained why hardly anyone found remains; their bodies broke down in minutes instead of weeks, even their bones. Only ones that were preserved with magic could be kept intact for study.

"Damn. I guess that means our job's done. Sorry, Cass—Cassandra? Where'd she go?" Jacob exclaimed, turning around and finding the redhead no longer standing behind him.

"Over here!"

Following the sound of her voice, they pushed through a tangle of low-hanging branches into a low, enclosed thicket, having to stoop at little to avoid being blinded by twigs. Cassandra was kneeling on the leaf matted ground, and a baby snallygaster, no bigger than a housecat, had crawled into her lap, cheeping loudly, and began rubbing its head against her. She stroked its downy-soft baby feathers gently, offering her fingers for it to nibble on curiously. "I guess we know why the big one was breaking into the slaughterhouse now," she mused aloud. "She was feeding her baby."

"So...what do we with that one?" Ezekiel wondered.

Jacob nearly said 'I don't know,' but then he glanced back at the redhead's face and smiled. He knew that look. Grinning, he nudged Ezekiel with an elbow and murmured in an undertone, "I know what _she's_ gonna do with it. Your turn to tell Jenkins."

* * *

Jenkins took one look at them and walked out of the room.

* * *

Cassandra decided to name it Teddy, after President Theodore Roosevelt, who once proposed hunting the snallygaster but changed his mind. The triplets all seemed to like him, since he was currently the same size as they were, with the same feathers and scales, though not in the same place. Sissy was the biggest worry. She was growing fast, and already she stood as high as a Great Dane, and she was starting to grow the bone spurs that marked adulthood in Greek hellhounds on her back and jaw. She still acted like a puppy, though, and sometimes forgot how big she actually was in her exuberance. Sissy was careful with him, though, and it wasn't uncommon to see her pick him up by the neck like a puppy and walk around with him.

Three days after rescuing him, though, they ran into a different problem. "He won't eat," Cassandra fretted, kneeling on the floor of the pet room. The bowl full of warmed blood sat untouched next to her; the snallygaster would sniff at it but it wouldn't drink any, only wander around making miserable noises. "I don't understand why. This is what the mother was drinking, so why won't he eat?"

"I have an idea. Come here, bring the bowl," Jacob said, gesturing her over. "A lot of animals that young, they aren't weaned yet. Since a snallygaster isn't a mammal, I don't think it can actually nurse, but maybe it's more like a bird, it regurgitates food for its young." He opened one of the cabinets that held the animal-care supplies. "So maybe it doesn't know that it's food because it's not coming from anything." He dug out a large plastic bottle, one of the big ones used to bottle-feed livestock. Taking the bowl from Cassandra, he carefully tipped it into the bottle. After rooting through the cabinets again, he came up with two plastic bottles, unscrewed the lid, and used a spoon to scoop out a coarse brown powder from each one.

"What is that?" Cassandra asked.

"Blood meal, meat and bone meal," Jacob replied as he spooned the powder into the bottle and shook it vigorously to stir it in. "They're also made in slaughterhouses as a by-product, and they're used as an organic fertilizer for plants, but also as a nutritional supplement in animal feed. Full of protein, calcium, all the good stuff found that's usually in a nursing animal's milk. Since our mama monster was breaking into those containers too, she was probably eating them, mixing it up in her belly for Teddy."

Cassandra stared at him when he handed over the bottle; the blood inside was now the approximate texture of a very thick milkshake. "Why do you know all this stuff?" she asked.

He smiled. "I grew up around farms, Cassie. Animal Science is a required course in high school," he replied. "Now, see if he'll take that."

She knelt down and held out her arms; Teddy slunk over to her, still crying pitifully. Cassandra offered him the bottle, squeezing the rubber nipple so some of the thickened blood mix oozed out. Teddy lapped at it, then took it in his beak. He couldn't exactly suckle, but his softened baby teeth worked well to squeeze it out. Once he got the hang of it, he gulped down the blood eagerly, coiling up in Cassandra's lap, reaching up to grasp at the bottle with soft claws.

"I cannot believe that worked, oh, Jacob, thank you," she sighed in relief, stroking Teddy's feathers.

"No problem. Now, she was only breaking into the slaughterhouse about once a week. From the size of her, I'd guess a full bottle is about how much she could fit in her belly."

"Only once a week?" Cassandra asked.

Jacob shrugged. "Some species of snakes can go several weeks without eating once they get a good meal in. I'm sure he'll let you know when he needs to eat again." He kissed her cheek and stood up. "And while Teddy finishes his dinner, I'm going to make sure Jonesy hasn't spoiled _our_ dinner yet. You know we can't leave him unattended around food for extended periods of time."

Laughing, Cassandra waved him off with her free hand. Only a moment after he'd left the room, she could hear his and Ezekiel's voices, echoing slightly up the corridor. Scooting closer, she used one foot to nudge the door open a little, their voices clearing, and she tilted her head to listen to their conversation.

"—just gross, mate."

"Oh, get stuffed, Jonesy. You can put Vegemite on pretty much everything you eat, but I can't have mayo with my chicken nuggets?"

"Vegemite is _good!"_

"What do you know about good? You put sprinkles on buttered bread and call it a dessert."

"It's called _fairy bread,_ you uncultured swine, and bugger your sense of taste. Americans deep-fry anything they get their bloody hands on!"

"And a deep-fried Twinkie is better than butter-bread-sprinkles, thank you very much."

"Oi, don't you dare talk shit about fairy bread. Who do you think you are?"

Cassandra shook her head and looked down at Teddy, coiled up placidly in her lap as he sucked on the bottle, his tail curling and uncurling around her wrist. "You better get used to that, Teddy. Those are your daddies, and that's how they flirt. It sounds like they don't like each other at all, I know, but that is because human men are very simple-minded creatures. They're both too stubborn to just say how much they love each other like normal people do, so they pick on each other instead," she informed him. Teddy only purred knowledgably, his eyes half-lidded and drowsy. "Yeah, I know, I love them, too."

* * *

Jacob put a few of his old welding skills to use and built a reinforced steel climbing frame in what'd been officially labeled as the pet room, strong enough for Teddy to climb on once he started getting more active, and Ezekiel presented Cassandra with a gilded leather collar with the appropriate engraved tags. It wasn't uncommon for them to come in and find Teddy and Sissy stretched out side-by-side on the floor with Magda, Zsa Zsa, and Eva curled on top of them like feathery pompoms. And it also wasn't unheard of to find all three Librarians asleep in the pet room with their animals piled up around them.

For all he liked to grumble about them, Jenkins had been caught slipping Sissy pieces of jerky and petting Teddy on several different occasions, not to mention all the times that Magda would perch on his shoulder like a very strange owl. They'd all witnessed Eve indulging in a game or two of fetch, either with a cattle thighbone for Sissy, regular sticks for the triplets and Teddy.

Flynn, however, had the misfortune of unknowingly taking Teddy's favourite bath towel when he got out of the shower one night, which led to everyone waking up at three in the morning, emerging from their rooms to find the senior Librarian screaming and running around the Annex in only a towel, pursued by a juvenile snallygaster very determined to get his blankie back from the interloper.

After that, all pets were required to wear a bell on their collar.

And the Librarians were under no circumstances allowed to bring home any more strays.


End file.
